A look at the latest trends in footwear from around the world.

03/24/2011

Shoe science, or is it engineering, revealed.

If you thought that all that goes into a pair of shoes is style and aesthetics, think again.

Parisian shoe guru Christian Louboutin has revealed that the job of shoemaker requires precision and engineering - and from what he says, it definitely must be more diifficult than it looks. And it already looks difficult.

As technology gets more and more sophisticated, I predict that so will shoes. Footwear will evolve as we ourselves do.

We've already seen the Sergey Brin shoe aka the Vibram Five Fingers grab media attention - and great/ slightly unusual though they look, ya can't help but wonder what the future holds when the following are applied to shoes:

Nanotechnology - when GPS is small enough, it will no doubt be put into shoes along with other nanotech allowing the wearer to look at all kinds of stats when they get home in terms of steps taken, calories burned, and the route info as well.

(Nanotechnology will undoubtedly also introduce self cleaning insoles, so it will be goodbye forever to smelly trainers.)

3d printing - it's not inconcievable that at some point in the future we'll be able to basically download shoe designs from the brand of your choice, and make them at home by pressing a button.

Anti gravity - ok, so this one's ptobably the furthest away of all, but these shoes willprovide an effortless gilde along the pavement.

We may have expected the 21st century to be the time we all went to work in a flying car but let's face it, decent trainers are much more cool.